I was lucky enough to have a VIP ticket for the gig of the year from work, so I left 20 friends in the field and headed into VIP with two other friends who had won tickets. To my mind, the concert was a great success, sure the security was tiresome but it was also nessecary. I heard of three buses coming down from the North, the three groups appeared to have some level of a feud on facebook and when they all pulled up at the same apple green service center the mother of all rows ensued. They trashed the place, but the Gardai in nearby Dundalk were on the ball and were there in 5 minutes. They loaded everyone back into the bus, took everyone’s names, and tore up all of their tickets to the gig! They then escorted the buses to the border where they were met by the waiting PSNI! Say what you like about the security, I think that tale just shows how important a role the Gardai played in the concert. My only concern with them was that they were not really clued in about where buses etc were leaving from, I felt this was vital information that they really should have known.

Eminem himself left most of the talking to his hype man, which I found to be extremely entertaining. As far as concerts go this one was pretty magical, seeing 82,000 people with their lighters in the air or rapping along to ”Lose Yourself” is something that is hard to forget. I also think the set list was well chosen, a perfect mix of old and new hits. The atmosphere was incredible, it had as much to do with the incredible venue as the fans enthusiasm. Eminem is a cool guy, I just wish he played for 20 minutes longer, still it was certainly the best concert I had ever been to and I don’t even like rap! My congratulations to the Conngyham family and all at Slane Castle and MCD who worked so hard to make the event a success.

However, the tale of Slane Girl has been lingering since the concert and it diminishes some of the brilliance of the concert. For those of you not in the know, (lucky you) photographs of a young girl aged 16 or so performing oral sex and other intimate acts with some absolute tosser have been circulating all over the internet. I like many others have been shocked by this story but not for all the reasons you would think.

I saw a post on twitter, I don’t really use twitter but this had been retweeted so many times it came to my attention. It said ”#SlaneGirl Whore #Slane Boy Legend.”

That is disgraceful, the blatent sexism there is apalling. The guy who has taken advantage of a young girl who has had far to much to drink is being hailed as a hero. What is wrong with our morals and our society that we are more than happy to shame the girl and praise the man when from what I can see he is equally if not more to blame.

Irish teenage girls have had a bad run of it lately with KPMG girl and Slane Girl. But hey a lot of people make a lot of mistakes they just are not posted all over the internet. This is one of the real dangers of the internet to me, it has turned us into a nation of bullies. We are happy to type abuse and slut shame until the cows come home because it is the internet and there are not many repercussions.

As to the girls behaviour, it’s not appropriate but the sad thing is many young people of that age think it is. That generation is so oversexualised and under so much pressure to behave a certain way that instances like this are increasingly common. I don’t know where the solution lies, the whole situation depresses and scares me in equal measure, all I know something has to change in the countries attitude to sex. The young are under incredible pressure to perform sexual acts from a young age and the the elders won’t talk about sex and can’t tell the younger generation that this is not the way sex is meant to be.

For me, Slane makes us question ourselves, our ethics morals and attitudes and not a moment too soon.